Rush Limbaugh: Hurricanes are a liberal conspiracy for promoting climate change

[Roy]

In any case we had the pelvic girdle which is what Sarfati was dishonestly asserting was undiscovered.

Also most or all of the vertebrae.

[rogue06]

Thanks. Subjects like these can be hard to work through because it seems like the actual discoveries are not completely laid out in an organized fashion for the non-expert. Briefly digging into this topic, one website I visited seemed to imply that the image that Safarti was using to suggest that the fossil remains were missing came directly from National Geographic themselves, and that the image that you added later were from another, more complete example found on a later date. I wish when things like these came to light that we'd see actual photos of the fossils as they were discovered in the ground, and the actual fossils in a museum or lab. But often times what we get (for some strange reason) is reconstructions. There's no lack of a drawings, computer simulations, and mock plaster recreations, but rarely photos of the actual fossils as they were discovered, and as they actually exist on a table in a lab/museum. Kinda frustrating. And then digging through all of the nonsense online just makes it all that much harder. This isn't just a complaint I have about paleontology, but also applies to similar fields like anthropology and archaeology. Even in the field that I'm most interested, early Christian writings...we're only just now getting fragments and codexes scanned in full thanks to the work of people like Daniel Wallace. I think the general public would be so much more interested in this stuff if it was all just more easily accessible.

Interesting since I, who am not a professional, was quite aware that Sarfati was being at best misleading about what was known about Ambulocetus when his critique came out.

[Roy]

Thanks. Subjects like these can be hard to work through because it seems like the actual discoveries are not completely laid out in an organized fashion for the non-expert. Briefly digging into this topic, one website I visited seemed to imply that the image that Safarti was using to suggest that the fossil remains were missing came directly from National Geographic themselves, and that the image that you added later were from another, more complete example found on a later date.

If it helps, there were multiple excavations of the site, with some of the fossilised bones being excavated one year and the rest the following year. However, they were not different specimens, and Sarfati was writing well after the second excavation.

[rogue06]

Also most or all of the vertebrae.

His complaint was about what had been originally been discovered which he then portrayed as being all that had ever been found overlooking the discoveries made in subsequent years. As I noted in my post above even though I'm not an expert I immediately recognized what he had done. It is very similar to the arguments made by some YECs about how scientists are fabricating things about Australopithecus afarensis which they base solely on the remains of "Lucy" while ignoring all of the remains found from literally several hundred other individuals excavated in subsequent years.

[Adrift]

Interesting since I, who am not a professional, was quite aware that Sarfati was being at best misleading about what was known about Ambulocetus when his critique came out.

Likely you knew something about this Sarfati guy, but I was talking generalities here, not this particular case only.

[Adrift]

If it helps, there were multiple excavations of the site, with some of the fossilised bones being excavated one year and the rest the following year. However, they were not different specimens, and Sarfati was writing well after the second excavation.

That's cool. Again, wish there was a website documenting that dig and other digs with full color photos, or all the fossil remains laid out in the lab on a table or something that way there'd be no room for confusion or controversy. Also, it'd just be cool to see.

[Mountain Man]

This wasn't on Tweb having taken place long after he was banninated. It was published on various YEC websites in response to the PBS series Evolution including the one you've been citing https://creation.com/refuting-evolut...hale-evolution

Here is the illustration used there along with the note attached to it

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24085[/ATTACH]
(A) Reconstruction of Ambulocetus, ‘at
the end of the power stroke during
swimming.’⁷ The stippled bones were all
that were found, and the shaded ones
were found 5 m above the rest.
(B) With the ‘additions’ removed there
really isn’t much left of Ambulocetus!

You're not being entirely honest, rogue. At the time the original article was written (around 1994, I think), what's shown in the illustration really was all that existed of the skeleton, so Sarfati's article was accurate at the time. But if you go to the link you referenced, you'll find embedded in the paragraph another link to this article which was last updated in 2012 and addresses the more recent evidence and criticisms.

In 2002, Don Batten wrote:

Source: creation.com

There is no deceit (faking), or contradiction, in the article. As stated at the beginning of the article, the article on the web was originally published in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now Journal of Creation) in 1994, the year Thewissen et al. published their original article. The material referred to is that published by Thewissen in 1994. It is now claimed, on Thewissen’s web site, that more material has been found. As far as I am aware, none of this extra material has been subjected to peer review. That is, it has not been published in a refereed scientific journal. As such, it is not admissible as scientific evidence (evolutionists are quick to demand this of creationists). However, even if it is so published in the future, I don’t have much confidence in the peer review process when it comes to paleontology—there seems to be a different standard applied to these papers, compared to experimental (operational) science. So many false claims have been given credit in prestigious peer-reviewed journals that I have become rather sceptical of all the claims. For example, Gingerich’s Pakicetus story, published in the prestigious journal Science in 1983, was based on some skull fragments. Science even published, on the front cover, an artist’s reconstruction of the whole creature, with legs becoming flippers, swimming in the sea chasing fish for its lunch. It is illustrative to compare this with a more recent reconstruction based on a much more complete skeleton—it is now clearly a terrestrial creature. See Whale evolution?

Even if the extra Ambulocetus material on Thewissen’s web site is legitimate, it does nothing to confirm it as a transitional form between whales and land animals. For example, there is no evidence of the development of the horizontal tail flukes so characteristic of whales, or the unique hearing system of whales (i.e. with no opening to the exterior), or the blow-hole, etc., etc. Indeed there is nothing that is uniquely ‘whale’ that identifies Ambulocetus as related to whales. Furthermore, the robustness of the femur, and presence of hooves confirm the creature as a land animal.

© Copyright Original Source

Then in 2012:

Source: Creation.com

Along with baseless accusations of dishonesty from the misotheists and some of their fellow travellers, I have been informed that the extra material referred to in Addendum 2 above has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (after I wrote the addendum). Please note that the original Perspective, “A whale of a tale”, was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation (then called Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal) in 1994, based on the material published at the time. The web archive of this article is part of an archive. Such publications cannot be edited later (that would be a cause for accusations of dishonesty if other than typographical corrections were made). No peer-reviewed journal provides updates to archived papers years later, so we have gone way beyond what any evolutionary journal does to inform readers.

[...]

As has already been said, the extra material does not add one shred of evidence to the story that this creature had anything to do with the origin of whales.

Indeed the whole story is seriously unravelling as time goes by. The discovery of a jawbone of a fully aquatic whale (a Basilosaurid) was announced in October 2011.1 This was ‘dated’ to 49 million years ago and since Ambulocetus ‘dates’ from 50-48 Ma, this does not leave much time for some stupendous evolutionary changes. The jawbone predates all other supposed whale ancestors except Pakicetus, which is as much a whale as someone’s pet dog.

As of the date of writing, the jawbone discovery has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Even if it does not pass muster (unlikely considering the international team involved), evolution of whales was ‘dead in the water’ anyway. We just have to consider what changes are necessary to change a land creature into a whale. Dr Richard Sternberg has listed some of them:2

Counter-current heat exchanger for intra-abdominal testes (to keep them cool)
Ball vertebra (to enable the tail to move up and down instead of side to side)
Tail flukes and musculature
Blubber for temperature insulation
Ability to drink sea water (reorganization of kidney tissues)
Fetus in breech position (for underwater birth)
Nurse young underwater (modified mammae)
Forelimbs transformed into flippers
Reduction of hindlimbs
Reduction/loss of pelvis and sacral vertebrae
Reorganization of the musculature for the reproductive organs
Hydrodynamic properties of the skin
Special lung surfactants
Novel muscle systems for the blowhole
Modification of the teeth
Modification of the eye for underwater vision
Emergence and expansion of the mandibular fat pad with complex lipid distribution
Reorganization of skull bones and musculature
Modification of the ear bones
Decoupling of esophagus and trachea
Synthesis and metabolism of isovaleric acid (toxic to terrestrial mammals)
Emergence of blowhole musculature and neurological control

This list is not exhaustive—think about behavioural changes, underwater communication system, echo-location, navigation capacities, ability to dive to great depths without the bends, etc. How many mutations would need to occur and permeate (be ‘fixed’ in) the evolving whale population to achieve such changes? How often would multiple mutations have to occur together, in a coordinated way, for any advantageous functionality to be achieved?

Using calculations published by evolutionists themselves3 (applying the equations of population genetics), which of course make assumptions as favourable as possible to evolution, Sternberg has shown that about all that could be expected in a whale-like population would be two coordinated mutations in about 43 million years. This is about the total time frame claimed for the evolution of all the whales. So the science of population genetics rules out the whale evolution story—even with the millions of years there has not been enough time. There has not been enough time even if we ‘buy’ the claimed evolutionary processes that they claim are responsible for new genetic information—mutations and natural selection (the evolutionary train is actually going in the wrong direction). With the new jaw discovery, the problem is enormously bigger because the millions of years they thought they had have evaporated.

© Copyright Original Source

The 2012 addendum even includes the latest photograph, so it's not as though they're trying to hide anything. So not only was the original story accurate, but at least Creation.com has kept on top of and responded to new developments. Care to revise some of the things you've said?

[Mountain Man]

Thank you. Yes, that looks far more complete than what Sarfati apparently had claimed.

See my above post. Sarfati's original article that rogue references was published in 1994 and accurately depicted the incompleteness of the skeleton at that time. Creation.com, at the very least, has responded to new developments (their last addendum was in 2012), so for rogue to pretend that Sarfati's original 1994 article represents the current opinion of creationists is inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

[Adrift]

See my above post. Sarfati's original article that rogue references was published in 1994 and accurately depicted the incompleteness of the skeleton at that time. Creation.com, at the very least, has responded to new developments (their last addendum was in 2012), so for rogue to pretend that Sarfati's original 1994 article represents the current opinion of creationists is inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

Ok, thanks. That makes a bit more sense. Though reading that article, it appears creation.com has left paleontologists in a no-win situation. The problem is that they presupposed their conclusion before all of the evidence was made available. It can be argued that the paleontologists did the same thing, but two wrongs don't make a right.

[Sparko]

how fat were these dinosaurs if they had to wear girdles?

[rogue06]

You're not being entirely honest, rogue. At the time the original article was written (around 1994, I think), what's shown in the illustration really was all that existed of the skeleton, so Sarfati's article was accurate at the time.

This was what he was still representing as what was known in 2001 in response to the PBS series Evolution which aired that year. That is what is not being entirely honest. But of course he knew those who tend to read YEC websites will never question it.

[Mountain Man]

Ok, thanks. That makes a bit more sense. Though reading that article, it appears creation.com has left paleontologists in a no-win situation. The problem is that they presupposed their conclusion before all of the evidence was made available. It can be argued that the paleontologists did the same thing, but two wrongs don't make a right.

That's probably a reasonable criticism. This is where the "same evidence, different interpretation" phenomenon rears its ugly head.

Still, if the 2012 addendum is correct, it appears that evolutionists did not assume nearly enough time for the extraordinarily complex series of mutations required to produce a modern day whale.

[rogue06]

See my above post. Sarfati's original article that rogue references was published in 1994 and accurately depicted the incompleteness of the skeleton at that time. Creation.com, at the very least, has responded to new developments (their last addendum was in 2012), so for rogue to pretend that Sarfati's original 1994 article represents the current opinion of creationists is inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

See my post above. Sarfati was still using this to represent what was known in 2001 in response to the PBS series Evolution which aired that year.

[Mountain Man]

This was what he was still representing as what was known in 2001 in response to the PBS series Evolution which aired that year. That is what is not being entirely honest. But of course he knew those who tend to read YEC websites will never question it.

As the 2002 addendum points out, "As far as I am aware, none of this extra material has been subjected to peer review. That is, it has not been published in a refereed scientific journal. As such, it is not admissible as scientific evidence (evolutionists are quick to demand this of creationists)."

Seems that Sarfati was just playing by the established rules.

[rogue06]

As the 2002 addendum points out, "As far as I am aware, none of this extra material has been subjected to peer review. That is, it has not been published in a refereed scientific journal. As such, it is not admissible as scientific evidence (evolutionists are quick to demand this of creationists)."

Seems that Sarfati was just playing by the established rules.

And yet it was published in scientific journals that peer reviews all submissions.

This goes a long way in demonstrating that Sarfati wasn't being sloppy and ignorant but deliberately dishonest